FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - For the third consecutive year, investors have poured more money into funds, delivering another record year for the industry in Germany. By the end of 2025, fund management companies in the country oversaw 4,851 billion euros. This figure — bolstered by price gains — was around 8.5 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the industry association BVI.
Nearly half of this massive sum is invested in special funds, which attract institutional investors such as insurers and pension funds. But private individuals also injected fresh capital into equity funds and ETFs. "The fund industry recorded its best new business for retail funds since 2021," summarized Matthias Liermann, President of the German Investment and Asset Management Association (BVI).
Retail funds, which target broader groups of investors, attracted a net inflow of 86 billion euros in new money. According to the Frankfurt-based association, this trend continued into 2026 with a positive start to the year. Liermann's conclusion: "More and more people are realizing that securities are a key building block for wealth accumulation and retirement planning."
Retirement Planning with the Help of the Stock Market
The industry is also calling for greater openness to financial markets in the ongoing reform of the pension system. BVI chief executive Thomas Richter stated: "In the state pension system, a shift towards capital funding is necessary in order to reduce the growing dependence of the pension system on tax subsidies in the medium term."
Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently announced a "paradigm shift" in German pension policy at the Deutsche Börse New Year's reception: "The statutory pension insurance will remain. But it will only be one component of a new overall level of provision, in which private and occupational pension schemes will play a much greater role than before," said the CDU leader.
"We have already agreed on this in the coalition agreement, and we will implement a sensible reform over the course of the year that addresses precisely this point, namely strengthening funded private and occupational pension provision," Merz said./ben/DP/zb
